Something in me - probably a small, nationalist dwarf part of my brain - something in me would like to feel proud of Dutch literature. But it's hard to when the annual 'book week gift' year in year out is granted to a male. I don't like being part of an unjust system. But let me say this: it is the election method that is the real problem here. The 'overordering' (meeting) that employs a simple flagging system - the basic way almost everything is decided here, from literary prizes to how much money is divided - it is a system based on the destruction of subtle values. You cannot ever say: I didn't understand this book. You can only say 'yes' or 'no'. And that system, that annihilates all forms of subtlety, that system is patriarchal in all its essence. So It's useless to simply maintain the method, and try to alter the outcome.